It was late before Trip returned to his cabin.
He was bone tired, but he didn't immediately strip off and begin readying himself for bed. Instead, he pulled a beer from the stash in the small chiller built into one of his cabinets, sat on the bed and began moodily reviewing the unpleasant events of the last hour. Every so often he swigged from the bottle as though the contents might help wash away the bitter sense of helplessness.
He and Jon had done everything to make Malcolm talk. Ordering, cajoling, pleading … nothing had worked. After that one word, the Brit had closed up like a clam. Even when in frustration Jon had left the room, hoping Trip on his own could coax some reaction from him, there had been no reply. No reaction at all. Just that taut, rigid body, and the mouth and eyes clamped shut.
Eventually Phlox had intervened. He had said that some of the patient's bio-signs were becoming dangerously elevated, and disregarding the captain's protests he had pressed a hypospray to Malcolm's neck. Only then had the blue-clad frame relaxed, though there had been enough residual tension in it to make it unexpectedly difficult for the doctor to ease out the tactical officer's legs and arms from their tightly fetal position into one that would be more comfortable while he slept. Then he had pulled up a blanket to cover him, and the whole scene had looked just like any one of a dozen in which the tactical officer had been Sickbay's most reluctant resident, recuperating from some mishap or other in the line of duty.
Except that it wasn't. And some of Jon's bio-signs were probably getting pretty damned elevated too, by this time, but even with his temper in shreds he couldn't overrule his CMO when it came to patient welfare. He'd stalked away back to his cabin and what sleep he could get, and watching him go Trip had thought to himself that if he were Porthos he'd crawl all the way under the bed and stay there till morning.
Hell, this wasn't getting him anywhere, he reflected ruefully, tipping up the bottle for the last swallow. Might as well get what shut-eye he could, ready for everything to kick off again tomorrow.
He stripped off most of his clothes and was just emerging from the bathroom, his hands on the waistband of his briefs ready to drop them into the laundry chute with the rest, when his door chime rang.
"Who is it?" he called cautiously. If it was Jon he'd have to take what he found, but if it was T'Pol it might be better to get a bit more appropriately dressed.
It proved, to his surprise, to be Travis.
The young helmsman wore an expression of some unease, but his air was resolute. After apologizing for the lateness of his visit, he asked if it would be possible to talk about something.
"C'mon in," replied Trip, resigning himself to even less sleep than he'd feared. "Fancy a beer?"
"No, thanks, sir." Travis came into the cabin as ordered, but stood awkwardly by the door. He didn't make a practice of paying social calls on his senior officers, being much more comfortable in the company of his fellow ensigns and lower ranks.
Trip sat on the bed again and contemplated getting another beer for himself. Maybe it wasn't the best idea. He glanced up at his visitor and gave a tight smile. "Might as well spit it out, Travis. Unless you're plannin' on standin' there all night."
Mayweather's smile in return was strained. "Sir, it's – it's what happened on the Bridge earlier. I was – we were wondering – there are so many rumors going around. I just wanted to ask if there was anything we were allowed to know."
Well, it had been pretty inevitable. It wasn't something that could be kept quiet; no doubt the rumor mill would be working at full speed by now. And Travis and Hoshi, along with a few others of the bridge crew, had been shocked witnesses of everything that had happened.
The only problem was that there was so little anyone actually knew – himself and the Captain including. Of that, even less was suitable for release to junior officers. It was all but certain that Travis would keep to himself anything he'd been told was confidential, but it was still completely out of order for him to be given anything like the truth. After all, what was the truth? So far, they had nothing but a set of facts that refused to fall into any recognizable pattern, and a man's whole future rested on the outcome.
"There's not a whole lot I can tell ya, Travis," he said slowly. "We have to find out a lot more before we can take any action. And right now, Malcolm's sedated in Sickbay, so he's not in any state to cooperate."
The ex-Boomer's eyes rested on him with a kind of fearful fascination. "Sir, you – you shot him."
"I didn't have much choice about that. I sure as hell didn't enjoy it." If he shut his own eyes he could see it again, as though the scene were burned on to his retinas: the intent profile, the fingers going through their deadly dance on the Tactical console. He'd had his hand on the phase pistol the instant Malcolm slid into his seat, though his mind refused to believe that this was anything more than some incredible misunderstanding on T'Pol's part. He'd honestly thought that the whole thing would end up with him slinking off the Bridge with his non-existent repairs supposedly completed, and quietly restoring the weapon to its locker with no-one ever being the wiser. Hell, he'd even have passed up teasing T'Pol about her mistake if only things could have worked out that way.
"I can't go into the details, you'll understand that. But the war down there – it's actually a war between the sexes. Men against women. Accordin' to what was in T'Pol's report, anyway." He doubted if that much could be regarded as classified. "And somehow, Malcolm got … involved. We have no idea how. But he was goin' to fire the ship's weapons at somethin' on the planet. That's why we had to stop him."
He watched Travis work through the awful implications. The ensign was a highly intelligent young man; it didn't take him a minute.
"I see." The helmsman's gaze dropped to the deck plating for a moment and then lifted again. "Sir, is there anything I can do to help?"
"If there was, you'd be the first to hear about it." Trip paused. "Travis, even what I've told you is totally confidential. If I find there's a single word of it out on the rumor mill, I'll have you spendin' every minute of your free time scrubbin' Jeffries tubes with a toothbrush for the rest of the voyage."
The younger man mustered a smile. "I don't expect to be raiding the quartermaster's supplies any time soon, sir."
"Hell, I'd never have told you if I hadn't known that."
There being little more to be said at this point, Travis took his leave, thanking him for the information. Trip finished stripping off, balled his underwear and threw it in the general direction of the laundry chute. He was too worn out to bother standing up, walking over and dropping it in; he'd do it in the morning. Gratefully he rolled into bed and switched the lights off.
Sleep, however, proved elusive.
For perhaps an hour he struggled to get comfortable. Ordinarily he had no problem with his bunk at all; he'd tumble into it and fall headlong into the sleep of the exhausted, except of course on those times when some engineering problem was playing on his mind and kept him awake a while. Tonight, however, he found himself just going over and over T'Pol's report and Malcolm's inexplicable behavior, trying vainly to fit the two of them into some universe that made sense. And the bunk just seemed to be made of duranium with lumps in it, while as for the pillow … well, someone had substituted it for one filled with jell-o. No support in it at all, and how was a man supposed to do his job right when he got up in the morning with a cricked neck from a useless goddamn pillow?
Maybe he should go talk to Phlox, get something to help him sleep. But that would mean having to set eyes on Malcolm again, having the whole crazy business pushed right back into his face, and if he was to get any sleep at all he had to find some way of stepping back from it, at least for a couple of hours. If he couldn't visit Sickbay, maybe a hot drink would go some way to relaxing him. He wasn't keen on milk without a good helping of coffee in it, but his Mom had cited its soothing properties so often that he was sort of persuaded it helped.
Sighing, he sat up and pulled on a pair of sweat-pants. The ship had been quiet for hours now; only the Gamma shift would be on duty. Chances were he wouldn't even meet anyone else between here and the Mess, and probably the Mess itself would be deserted.
He padded barefoot down the dim corridors. He was right in his first guess: the place was as quiet as a tomb. Although obviously they were offline right now, he liked the sensation of the low, easy hum of the warp engines striking up through the deck plating into his feet. Boots muted the effect, made it feel less alive and personal. He loved this ship so much, saw the whole voyage as a huge adventure, and that he should be in charge of the engines that made it all possible was the greatest honor he could imagine.
An enormous responsibility too, of course, but he wasn't afraid of that.
His second supposition, however, was inaccurate. Another member of the Alpha shift was sleepless too, it seemed.
He didn't see her immediately, being too focused on getting his hot milk and retreating to his cabin. If the lights had been on normal strength he'd have noticed her at once, but she was so slight and dark, standing in the shadows in the furthest corner, just staring out of the observation port. He might well not have seen her at all, but he just glimpsed her as he turned around to leave.
Ordinarily he'd have opened a conversation at once. There sure had to be some reason why Hoshi was wakeful at this hour, and they'd often sparred cheerfully over breakfast. She wasn't in his chain of command, but that was no reason why he shouldn't show concern, just offer a friendly voice if she happened to need one.
Something checked him, however. With her ultra-sensitive hearing, there was no way she could be unaware of his presence, but she hadn't turned around. The set of her back suggested that she wanted to be left alone, and he paused, wondering if he should ignore that impression and speak anyway. She certainly knew he was there; at a guess, she could tell from his breathing who he was. If she wanted company or comfort, all she had to do was look around.
She didn't.
Sometimes people just want to be left alone to sort things out in their own mind. Maybe this was one of the times for Hoshi. With a small, resigned shrug Trip left the Mess again and walked back to his quarters, sipping the hot milk cautiously as he went in the effort to get it drunk as soon as possible.
Most of it was gone by the time he was back in his bunk. Some benevolent entity had replaced the duranium mattress with his usual comfortable one, and the pillow mysteriously no longer felt as though it were made of jell-o. Sighing relief, he pulled up the blanket again and shut his eyes. Momma always knew what she was talking about.
The last thing that drifted through his mind was that Travis and Hoshi ….
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